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Juicy, punkers! Order some shit and save your walls from boredom!

"Beers
are for drinkin' 'til you
fall down sick. And if the drinks are free, I'm all for that. So chug 2
gallons in a minute flat. Drinking sudsy water from a plastic cup -
looking so pathetic, getting so fucked up. But if the kegs R4 kids, I
hope we never run out of beer!"Sloppy Seconds:Endless Bummer

Ten years have passed since the
release of Sloppy Seconds' last full-length studio album
and my consequent interview
with the lead-singer and lyricist of the band, B.A.. Both The
Juicy Cerebellum and Sloppy
Seconds were on the
brink of making it big at the time. I had just been accepted as a
critic for Rotten Tomatoes (after playing editor to what
would have been a grammatically ugly, typo-filled site if I hadn't
given a shit) and had begun receiving press invites to advance
screenings of any and all movies along with a few interests in
purchasing or partnering with this site from the corporate types (one
that I still regret
turning down). Sloppy Seconds had just released a record on
Nitro Records -- an upstart label created by then punk-phenom, Dexter
Holland of The Offspring. Inevitable stardom for the
band and the site seemed to be mere moments away.

That was then.

Here we are a decade later with my ass having given up on the petty
politics of Rotten Tomatoes, PR firms, film studios and film critics in
general. I'm now writing free reviews for Netflix and being paid a pittance for
meatier critiques from a small, offline publication. I don't
know what the fuck Sloppy Seconds are doing, but when I heard
from B.A. last year, he was pretty excited about the upcoming "Endless
Bummer" album and doing another interview with The Juicy
Cerebellum. And he still
wasn't a rock star, just like I wasn't lead film critic for Rolling
Stone with blurbs such
as, "Best movie so far this year!" in the marketing for some lame
comedy
released on the first day of January.

So why aren't either of us embarrassed about the aceless cards we've
been dealt (B.A. starts off this new record pretty much bragging about
Sloppy's failure to make it big)? Because, despite
limited airplay on MTV,
no acceptance by the "cream of the crop" film critic lemmings, no
sold-out arena tours and no multi-million dollar purchase of The
Juicy Cerebellum from Google, I'm still making a kick ass
webpage and, with "Endless Bummer" as his witness, B.A. is
still making kick ass music.

And doing what you want to do and making a living doing it is about the
greatest fucking thing a person could ask for. Well, doing what you
want to do, getting filthy rich off of it and discovering a beer that
doesn't cause hangovers is probably the greatest fucking thing a person
could ask for, but coming in second in the Department of Dreams ain't
too shabby. Which brings me to the Juicy review of the newest Sloppy
Seconds' junk rock
masterpiece, "Endless Bummer."

DIY Till We Die!:"Have you
heard about the latest craze? Was it just a passing phase? Do you wanna
have a rockin' band, or just a flash in the fuckin' pan? Do you wanna
turn the other cheek, for the fucking flavor of the week?" First
thing I thought when I read the title was, "What's B.A. talking about
in our interview when he says, 'our goal is to
reach as many people as we can. Speaking as a band that's been fucked
over by a lot of supposedly 'DIY' labels, that's a lot more demeaning
than the kind of blood-thirsty attitude you'd expect from a major
label.'"
Then I started the song and heard him belch out, "play that piece of
shit" and I didn't give a toss, anymore. The comments were made a
decade ago. This shit is playing, now. And even if the rest of the
record sucks, this one mother-fucking song makes the 10 year wait worth
it!

10
(on
a scale of 1-10, 10 being
the best. And, if you didn't know that 10 is the best, you
should probably
go blow your brains out.)

Kegs R4 Kids:"Beers are for drinkin' 'til you
fall down sick. And if the drinks are free, I'm all for that. So chug 2
gallons in a minute flat. Drinking sudsy water from a plastic cup -
looking so pathetic, getting so fucked up. But if the kegs R4 kids, I
hope we never run out of beer!"It's
the 21st Century version of "So Fucked Up!" No
lines as memorable as the one about the "Technicolor yawn" (that shit
was pure genius), but the song is catchy as alcoholism during 2-for-1
night at the pub and will stick in your brain until it atrophies from
too much booze. Only complaint is that B.A. is using a deeper gravel
voice than usual -- a
voice not heard since Pubic
Beat on one of the 7 inchers in the mid-80s.

9

I Don't Wanna Go Out With You:"The dinner
was lousy, the movie was crap, you spent the whole night with your head
in my lap ... so, I really don't wanna go out with you and I never will
anymore." Even when he's uninspired, B.A. comes up
with some of the best snotty lyrics to fill up a song. How many
retreads of Ramones'
"I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You" can a punker endure? Apparently,
one more.

7

You Can't Kill Joey Ramone:"No,
no, no - Joey don't go. Hey, hey, hey - don't take Joey away." Maybe
sentimentality has gotten the best of me, but this is the best fucking
song Sloppy Seconds
has done in 15 years. When Joey died (read my
tribute here) I tried to put on my best "optimist face"
because I thought that's what Joey would have wanted. I wrote, "I
think all of us should stop and put a single rose, a tube of glue and a
pair of
Converse All Star shoes in the Pet Sematary, and take a couple of
minutes to
remember the man who finally made rock and roll real.
Joey would be the
first one to tell us that anything more than a couple of minutes is
just too
damn long." But here we are, 8 years later, and now we know that a
decade won't be enough. In many ways, punk died with Joey. And somehow
"You Can't Kill Joey Ramone" explains why. Not so much in
words (although the words are great), as in feel. I can feel B.A. pounding
against a wall he cannot break. A moment he cannot change. A hero he
can never get back. It breaks my heart and becomes an anthem, all at
the same time.

10

Thanks for the Mammaries:"In
every city, wherever I roam, I'm looking for a girl from a broken home,
to drop out of school, do lots of drugs, take off her top and show us
her jugs."
Definitive proof that Sloppy
Seconds still doesn't give two craps about political
correctness. Is this a salute to strippers, or a mocking of them? Does
anyone give a fuck? It's about broken women with no potential in life
showing drunk dudes their tits. Does it get any better than that?

9

Everybody Hates the United States:

"The
jealous try to tell us that we just don't care. Everybody hates the
United States, so why does everybody try to immigrate? They wash up on
the shores of Miami Beach, but they don't wanna dance to the Yankee
beat." If this one was written as parody, it did a piss-poor
job. If it's meant to be taken seriously, it makes B.A. sound like he's
turned into one of the assholes he satirized in the classic
"Lynchtown U.S.A." Either that, or like he's auditioning as a lyricist
for Toby Keith. If the song's a parody, it fails. If the song's
serious, it fails. Only if the song's a Toby Keith audition, does it
succeed. I don't dig this xenophobic shit on a Sloppy Seconds'
album (exception made for "The whole nation of France" line in "I Want 'Em
Dead"). That said, it does have a bouncy rhythm that ex-guitarist Danny
"Roadkill"
Thompson could have worked wonders with. But even with a great
tune, a FOX News' commentary would still be impossible to
enjoy.

3

P.O. Box 33046:"I
run home and check my email, but it's never from a female. But there's
some kid in Boston, who thinks we're truly awesome." This is
another one where B.A. is lowering his voice to "Pubic Beat" levels.
Sorta wish the lyrics were about something and that the
chorus was at least somewhat memorable. This one feels like musical and
lyrical padding.

6

Endless Bummer:"No
job. No education. No sex. No masturbation. No calls. No one here to
see me. Take it all away. Tell me it'll be okay. Cuz I don't wanna say
life's an endless bummer." Here we're teetering on the
serious Sloppy Seconds
revealed in full only once on the superb album, Knock Yer Block Off.
B.A. isn't willing to take it quite as far as he did with that seminal
(and nearly forgotten) release, but even a reminder is enough to put a
smile of identification on my miserable face. Pretty punchy tune, too.

8

Shut Up and Pour Me a Drink:"I'm not in
denial, so don't put my life on trial. I never asked for your opinion.
So I don't wanna hear your sermon. Nobody's paying you to think, SHUT
UP and pour me a drink." Could easily become the theme song
of wet alcoholics around the world. This is one of those Sloppy Seconds'
numbers that make me wonder why Sloppy
Seconds isn't one of the best-selling bands of all-time.

9

High School Girlz:"When
I was in high school, the girls were really lame. They didn't like good movies.
They didn't like punk rock. They didn't have big boobies. They wouldn't
suck my cock." Kind of a "Veronica"-ish punk-rock
ballad. You'll be humming
this one for days. Unless you have bad taste in music. Or are unable to
hum.

8

Let Me See Your Driver's License:"I don't
wanna go to prison for some statutory rape. Let me see your driver's
license or I'm plotting my escape! You tell me that you're legal, but a
girl's been known to lie. You can take your learner's permit to the DMV
and burn it, but you'll never need to turn it into me." Sort
of resembles Destroyed's
"Take You Home" but only enough to remind you of how much better than
song was. This one is too short (never thought I'd say that about a
song) and is as underdeveloped as the majority of girls at a Jonas Bros.'
concert. It's sort of fun while it lasts though, and isn't a throwaway.

7

Lois Lane:"Lois Lane
passed away after work today. We all knew she had the shakes from her
morning coffee breaks. She was found in the nude, on her 27th lude. But
just don't look up in the sky, cuz he ain't there no more. There ain't
no point in waiting on the Man of Steel." I love everything about this song. Only Sloppy Seconds
would come up with a heartbreak song regarding Superman and the loss of
Lois that doesn't sound like a discarded Weird Al tune.
When he says, "Goodbye Cruel Metropolis" I didn't know whether to laugh
or cry. And that's always been the magic of B.A.'s lyrics. And the
magic of Sloppy Seconds'
music has always been to get you dancing and to get song after song
stuck in your head. The music in Lois Lane works this magic perfectly
and there's now another in a long line of Sloppy songs stuck in my
increasingly crowded skull (at this point my brain's running out of
space to fit new songs faster than my iPod).

10

Achy Breaky Skull:

"That
girl had no respect. She broke my heart, so I broke her neck. She'll
have no more affairs, since I threw her down the stairs! She's
paralyzed, but that's okay. Now whenever I'm in the mood, she's lying
there in the nude - and she was always brain dead anyway."
Around a year ago I asked B.A. if the new album was going to be as
nasty as Destroyed!
or somewhere in the safer middle-ground like More Trouble Than They're Worth.
He pointed to this song and told me to wait for it. Now I know why.
This is, hands-down, the most controversial thing Sloppy Seconds has
released since "If I Had a Woman" nearly 20 years ago. Supposedly the
pressing of this record was held up because someone at the pressing
plant took offense to it and refused to print the album. This song is
probably why. Now, B.A., when are we going to get the sequel about the
girl who held up the pressing of your product due to a fucking
shock-rock joke song? Don't make it another 10 years! Only thing bad
about this song? Referencing a hit single that hasn't been popular for
15 years and using it as the title. Then again, Billy Ray himself
references the damn thing on Hannah Montana every fucking chance he
gets, so maybe it's become retro-cool. But that would imply Billy Ray
was once cool, so ...

9

Ray:

"I
chew my nails. Pick my nose. Spit my nails on the floor and wipe
boogers on my clothes." What the hell? Seriously, what the
fuck is this? Other than the worst Sloppy Seconds' song ever written?
Maybe there's an inside joke here, but this is just terrible.

1

This is Your Brain on Drugs:

"Good
morning. This is your brain on drugs. This is your final warning. Go
sweep it under the rug. We really think there's something you should
know. And we don't wanna be the ones to say, 'I told you so.'"
I've listened to this one again and again (an easy thing to do, as it's
a good song) trying to make sense of the lyrics. Is this B.A. repeating
the lectures he receives back into the microphone or is this B.A. being
a huge hypocrite? This is the, "give me an excuse and a substance to
abuse" guy, right? Right?!? Musically, this one sounds a lot like Screeching Weasel.
But it's payback, as
Screeching Weasel always sort of sounded like Sloppy Seconds and
even did their own version of "I Don't Wanna be a Homosexual" titled,
simply enough, "I Wanna Be a Homosexual" (at least I've always assumed
Ben was basing his homosexual song on B.A.'s). The voice is too deep,
once again, but it's a really catchy
song to growl along with.

8

Nightmare Theater:

"Ever
since, the seventh grade, Friday nights we'd stay up late, monster
movies 10-to-2 -- what the hell went wrong with you? Now your
girlfriend
makes you go, out to the movie show, but you don't see no horror
flicks, just that junk your girlfriend picks. I don't know what you see
in her, I'm watching Nightmare Theater, all alone on Friday night, but
that's alright with me."
Looks like one of "The Men" went traitor. This is such a spot-on
nostalgic singalong it's impossible for any monster-movie loving man
not to fall in love with it on first listen. The only thing that holds
it back from 10/10 ... oh fuck it -- this one is a 10 out of 10.
Nothing can hold back Nightmare Theater!

10

F.F. Sucks the World:

"You're
such a self-serving asshole. Treating friends like they're disposable.
After everything that you've been through." This is a
genuinely pissed-off song. I'm guessing it's about Dr. Roadkill, but
I'm guessing there's a 50/50 chance I'm wrong and I'm guessing no one
in Sloppy Seconds
would ever give it away, anyway. Just wondering if "F.F." stands for
"Fat Fuck." But I'm probably overthinking the whole thing. The song is
pretty great, but never quite lives up to the potential shown at the
beginning when B.A. spits out, "You're such a self-serving
asshole."

9

OVERALL RATING
AVERAGE (not
counting the remake at the end of the disc that I didn't review) -
Endless Bummer
gets a 7.9 out of 10, ranking it as a, "Buy NOW, mother-fucker" release.

Sloppy Seconds has
taken a step in the right direction with this release. I've never
disliked one of their CDs, but More
Trouble Than They're Worth disappointed me, despite having
some excellent songs that are still in heavy rotation wherever my music
is played.

I don't like the extra gravel
and deepness/gruffness B.A. added to his voice on this new one, but
don't know if
that was avoidable. And the lyrical improvement over the last release
more than makes up for it.

Despite my brief friendship
with Danny "Roadkill" Thompson ending abruptly and badly (if ANYONE has
the interview I did with him but took down -- at his request
-- send
it to me), I don't think Sloppy
Seconds will ever be quite the same without him on guitar.
His rockabilly-fueled twang was as immediately identifiable with Sloppy Seconds as
B.A.'s snotty growl and snarky party lyrics.

Current lead guitarist, Ace
Hardware, is really coming into his own. He just has an entirely
different style from Danny that takes some getting used to -- and a
record a decade doesn't help the process along (who else is up for a
new
Sloppy album by the end of the year?).

Endless Bummer is
better than 99.999999% of punk records out there (with 18 songs -- 17
of them rated -- the average doesn't make it look as impressive as it
really is). Sloppy
Seconds
usually own the years when they release albums and this one is no
exception. 24 years into their career as a band and Sloppy Seconds still
proves JUNK ROCK RULES!